New history book of Spider-Man's 60-plus years

C-Ville Weekly interviewed Patrick A. Reed, a pop culture historian originally from Charlottesville, VA, who's authored a history of Spider-Man's publication in over 6 decades:

Patrick A. Reed is a pop culture historian, curator, journalist, and DJ who grew up in Charlottesville and now lives in New York. He recently authored Spider-Man Total Universe: More Than 60 Years of Every Comic, Every Character, Every Story, which combines eye-popping archival images, character spotlights, and detailed story arcs from Spidey’s history into 800-plus pages. As comprehensive as it is entertaining, the book offers insights and reflections for longtime Spider-Verse fans as well as newcomers to the Marvel Universe. Reed spoke to C-VILLE ahead of his book talk on November 14 at New Dominion Bookshop.

The part in this short interview that's worth highlighting is what's told at the end:

How is it digging through archives, both as a curator and working on the book?

It’s wild. Marvel has a digital archive but they don’t have a publishing archive… but there were also a lot of things that weren’t in Marvel’s digital archive… To actually look at the original issues and the ads, the cultural context, most of that research was done going through boxes at conventions, picking up issues, going through my own collection and that was a pretty mammoth task.

As a reader and a fan, I grew up knowing that… Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and John Romita did the Marvel comics. These things were made by people. And in working with Marvel, it’s been fascinating because a lot of the names I knew growing up are suddenly actual people I’m speaking to about their work.

Ultimately, I hope this is a book that works as a reference, that you can pull off the shelf if you want to look something up… I tried to write it in a way that sets up the story and follows it more or less chronologically. So… hopefully it works as a thing for that nerdy kid that I was and, as you can tell, still am.

Well here's the thing: if this history book brings up the atrocity of One More/Brand New Day, and the deal with Mephisto to obliterate the Spider-marriage, does it discuss the topic objectively? Does it also discuss how dreadful J. Michael Straczynski's run actually was, in ways that make the Clone Saga look almost classic by comparison? And does it discuss how characters like Miles Morales were only created to serve a woke agenda for people too lazy to create their own stories? If this is just another superficial guide lacking objectivity and opinion, I'm not sure what the use is of producing a history book that won't make distinctions between good and bad. I guess that's what "working" with Marvel is telling - that he worked with modern staffers who couldn't care less how badly Spidey and the MCU were brought down by their political correctness. If Reed didn't do it independently, perhaps that's the mistake? If he'd added reference to the very recent storyline where Mary Jane Watson was turned into a female Venom, that's not "entertaining", and come to think of it, Straczynski's run was far from comprehensive as it distorted continuity, so I'm not sure if calling this new book "comprehensive" makes sense.

And depending when and how he first did the research, how come he didn't rely upon the Masterworks, Omnibuses and Epic Collection archives? I can't understand why, in an age where a lot of classics are finally getting their due in reprints, and DC's recently launched the similar Finest archives along with their own Omnibuses, some historians can't rely on what'd be easier to buy than back issues at a flea market. Yet that's probably nothing compared to the failure to take an objective viewpoint in these would-be history books. That's exactly what enabled Joe Quesada, Bill Jemas and Dan Buckley to get away with the worst of what they did to Spidey and MJ 2 decades ago, yet we still see only so many history books with no critical standing in sight, developed by people who won't do their research independently of the publishers involved. So what's the point?

UPenn's exhibit for Black heroes and creators

KYW Newsradio reported about the University of Pennsylvania's Black heroes and creators exhibit, and one of the examples cited is a more recent creation of Brian Bendis that became an early example of DEI propaganda:

Curated by Penn Associate Vice Provost Sean Quimby and Curator of Civic Engagement Samantha Hill, The Black Hero’s Journey aims to tell the origin stories of popular heroes like Black Panther, Miles Morales, Storm and Luke Cage, among others.

What is so special about Morales that makes it so important to add Bendis' pedestrianly written creation to the list? If the character's put on display sans any objectivity regarding the stories he appeared in, that's what makes this part of the exhibit an absurd joke. Similarly, if any modern stories appear without an objective view, that too makes this into a mockery.

I think it'd work a lot better if they'd find a suitable cutoff point when it comes to the majors, and focus from that point on the independents. But as this news makes clear, they won't do it that way, and it's regrettable if they think a creation written up for the sake of political propaganda is such a big deal when nothing was done since to make Morales' creation worth it. After all, he was introduced to serve as a mixed-race Spider-Man in costume, and nobody considers that Peter Parker, as the original Spidey, was created to serve as an individual with his own agency, not to serve as a springboard for more characters wearing the same costume, and even Jessica Drew's Spider-Woman costume doesn't look the same as Peter's. When a character's only introdued for the sake of starring as the "Spidey of another ethnicity/race/sex", not for meat and potatoes storytelling, so it takes away the seriousness even from the very exhibit that's apparently highlighting Morales now. That doesn't help the exhibit well.

History of Houston's fanbase

The Houston Chronicle interviewed a local writer who wrote a book about the city's history in fandom:

However, the origin of fandom itself is far less chronicled than that of superheroes or even the comic industry that produced them. How exactly did one of the most disposable types of literature become one of the most lucrative genres of entertainment on Earth?

That is what author Dr. Robert Meaux explores on a local level in his latest book, "Comic Shops, Conventions, and the Growth of a Fan Community: The Story of Houston Comic Book Fandom," now available through Amazon. It’s a short but painstakingly researched history of how Houston became a mecca for comics back when few people saw their worth. It pairs with a lifelong love of comics, comic stores, and comic conventions that Meaux has had since middle school when his mom took him to HoustonCon ’77 at the Dunfey’s Royal Coach Inn.

“It gave me a chance to explore this part of my teenage years and my early adult life,” said Meaux, who will have a book signing at Third Planet on Saturday. “It was fascinating learning about all of the behind-the-scenes things that were going on that I had no clue about at the time."

From despised to celebrated

The book opens with the comic industry in a downturn. Sales after World War II slumped, and a public hysteria movement about juvenile delinquency led the comic industry to neuter itself under the Comics Code Authority. By 1965, comics were considered either vapid childhood nonsense or puerile seductresses of the young, depending on the era. Literature they certainly were not.

The man who changed that in Houston was radio and sports broadcaster Gene Arnold. A positive story about his comic collection in the Houston Post showed many local collectors that they weren’t alone. There was even a celebrity unabashedly showing off his Superman.

As usual, I find myself in the sad position of asking if all involved in the writing of this article really mean it if they say they're against censorship, because the past decade has proven otherwise, and it's still a serious problem today. And literature or not, does merit count? Look at what the mainstream's become today, dumbed down to drastic levels, all because of hysteria similar to the 50s.

This led to a small but dedicated group of fans and collectors building the first comic shops and starting the first swap meets. Glenn Kessler would help found the first HoustonCon just two years later. Roy Bonario helped him after establishing a thriving comic business out of the back of Harmony Hut Record Shop, a business that eventually morphed into Roy’s Memory Shop. [...]

A major theme in Meaux’s book is that there was a period when no one but a handful of fans thought comics could be something more than trashy, disposable entertainment. Legitimacy was literally built by fans, who innovated, organized, and commentated on the industry until it grew into the juggernaut it is today.

Well the irony is that even today, the same people with low opinions still don't think it's anything more than that, except now, they believe it's nothing more than something to exploit for profit at the expense of the zygote when they turn them into movies and TV shows, and then proceed to destroy said zygote full force, with Marvel's Avengers: Disassembled, DC's Identity Crisis and also Spider-Man's One More/Brand New Day just a sample of the worst stories ever produced. I wonder if Meaux's book even talks about that? Probably not, and that's a problem. Even if it's mainly about how a leading city in Texas built up pop culture fandom for the southwest USA, anybody who's not going to explore what went wrong and why it's wrong to ruin other people's favorite franchises is not doing fandom favors at all. When will any professional writer be willing to write a book laying bare what went wrong, and have the guts to name all the guilty?

James Tynion sadly continues to get more film and TV deals

The Hollywood Reporter says overrated horror comics writer Tynion is getting another film deal:

Comic book creator James Tynion IV and his production banner Tiny Onion has signed a first-look deal with Blumhouse Atomic, the horror powerhouse run by Jason Blum and James Wan.

The deal begins with a bang as Blumhouse joins Tiny Onion and Lyrical Media in working on an adaptation of Exquisite Corpses, Tynion’s best-selling and award-winning comic book universe centered on a serial killer battle royale. The title, which Tynion created with artist Michael Walsh, is being developed across both film and animation.

Blumhouse Atomic and Tiny Onion are already working on a movie adaptation of Tynion’s horror comic Something Is Killing the Children, with Craig Zobel recently boarding as director. The good vibes led to the first-look and partnership on Corpses.

Why do we need to keep hearing about these useless adaptations of modern horror mishmash that won't be regarded as classics in decades to come? Even Stephen King's adaptations won't, IMO. If some are saying the comics medium become so influential these days, this certainly isn't how to do it. A most overused genre building on horror and violence does the medium no favors in the long run.

Warner Brothers fires James Gunn and Peter Safran as producers for their DC adaptations

Variety announced at least 2 prominent filmmakers have been fired from their positions as the overseers of the DC comics adaptatations:

In a surprise executive shuffle, James Gunn and Peter Safran are stepping down as CEOs and chairmen of DC Studios. They will be replaced by Jeremy Latcham, who will serve as president and chief creative officer.

Gunn and Safran’s exit is unexpected because they were named as part of David Ellison’s business leadership team at the newly renamed Skydance when Paramount’s $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery had closed in October. After four years as heads of DC, resetting the studio’s comic book division to mixed commercial results, Gunn and Safran will return full time to creative work.

Gunn and Safran were appointed in 2022 by former Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, with an edict to fashion a true rival to Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe. Under their direction, the duo rebooted the languishing DC Universe with last summer’s “Superman,” a relative success with $618 million globally, and then stumbled with July’s “Supergirl,” a massive bomb with $126 million on a $170 million budget. “Clayface,” a darker, R-rated body-horror thriller, performed modestly this fall with $109 million on a $44 million budget. Meanwhile, they expanded the comic book empire to streaming with its “Peacemaker” and “Lanterns” shows for HBO Max.

I hope Clayface lost money, though you probably couldn't expect such a sorry trade journal to seriously admit it. But if Clayface was a success, that's awful, because it only ensures continuation of a genre that's taken up too much of the market, and at the expense of the comedy genre. And it gives a very bad feeling about what kind of audience we have attending such fare today.

But this certainly is impressive that, under Skydance ownership, Gunn and Safran have been given the dismissal notice they decidedly deserve. It's not like Gunn's Superman film has actually left something that people are talking about it all the time over a year after it first premiered. Let's also consider Gunn was originally fired from Marvel/Disney employ after it was discovered he'd written obscene jokes about sexual abuse on social media. That kind of repellence doesn't help matters. Also, the Lanterns TV show builds on leftist ideology, with the worst part being how a policewoman was scapegoated for Hal Jordan's demise in a live action program.

I guess now, it's a question of whether comics movies will start to gradually fade away? They fail to acknowledge the Marvel movieverse, as I call it, began to stumble at the end of the past decade when the Capt. Marvel movie premiered, and it's been mostly failures since, including the 4th Thor film. Perhaps if the movies and TV shows evaporated, we'd finally be able to get some focus on improving the artistic and financial fortunes of mainstream comicdom? We could only hope.

What some creators are saying about the USA midterm election

It's time to check what some of the farthest left creators think of the 2026 midterm election, which saw results sadly turn in their favor. For example, here's Kurt Busiek, who said, here, here, here and here:

What he says about Cruz is sick. And why does Busiek believe Trump literally doesn't want the GOP to be able to retain the White House? Also, over here:

I wonder why the "strategist" isn't named? Maybe fuel did play a part in the failure for the GOP, but anybody who's going to talk so crudely isn't making a good case regardless of where they stand, nor are they helping if they believe Iran's barbaric dictatorship should be allowed to continue standing. I guess that's why Busiek doesn't take issue with J.D. Vance, who's got some responsibilities to shoulder there. With the way Busiek continues to go about, that's why I won't be wasting any money today on his creator-owned GNs like Arrowsmith.

Then there's Ron Marz, who first re-posted the following items here and here from 2 left-wing news sources:

I think Marz's strongly implied favoratism for Abdul el-Sayed nullifies his attempt to use the New Republic's article as a claim the Republicans promote "ignorance". Next, he wrote the following here and here, and here, and here, which could give a clue where he stands on issues like illegal immigration, and another Republican politician:

So says somebody who acts like being a liberal means it's impossible to be ignorant. Look at what ICE nabbed in New York. That's not a serious issue? Once again, Marz proves quite a dreary bore, and I won't waste time on his creator owned books either.

There's also at least one from Gail Simone that's very chilling:

So she's all in for a Muslim politician who's taken disturbing positions on children, made statements hurtful to Israel, and even keeps books on his shelves containing verses hurtful to Black Africans? Shudder. This definitely explains what's wrong with Simone, and I will not read any of her creator-owned writings.

In addition, there's also a puff piece on Forbes about a GN they claim might've turned North Carolina blue, and the people involved are perhaps unsurprising choices:

One of the most creative responses came from Andrew Aydin, co-writer of John Lewis’s best-selling graphic novel memoir series March, who had moved to the region and was caught up in the disaster and recovery effort. Aydin recognized that the community needed more than money to rebuild what it had lost. It needed to tell its stories, to be dignified and recognized for what its people had gone through. So he organized the Appalachia Comics Project as a way to get those stories to as large an audience as possible.

“Comics and graphic novels can help dramatize conflicts,” said Aydin in a call earlier this week. “They can help show the reality of horrible situations in a way that brings people together.”

Aydin spearheaded a unique project to pair members of the community with top comic book industry professionals like Brian Michael Bendis, Matt Fraction, Steve Orlando and Gene Luen Yang to produce an anthology of personal narratives about the storm and its impact. He launched a crowdfunding campaign to cover production costs, and Islands in the Sky was published in September, 2026.

Bendis' name alone is enough to make me leery, considering how repellent his stories for Marvel and DC were. I don't know if this GN actually helped politically, but anybody who's going to hire such overrated, pretentious scribes as Bendis and company is not making a good impressive of themselves.

One of the saddest things about all these leftists in the comics industry has to be that they never change, and these statements of theirs are another example of how they remain the same.

More about what's wrong with the new Avatar cartoon

A writer at the Daily Wire tells more about what's wrong with the picture in the new Avatar sequel, Seven Havens. For example, the reviewer, who's of Korean descent, feels it throws out Chinese cultural heritage:

The original Avatar built civilizations. The new one is more interested in rebuilding them around Hollywood’s contemporary liberal sensibilities and commitment to “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

Discarding Cultural Heritage

Fast-forward roughly 225 years after “The Legend of Korra.” An environmental apocalypse, which Avatar Korra herself supposedly caused, has wiped out the four nations. Humanity huddles in seven city-states (“havens”). The new Avatar is Pavi, a 9-year-old orphan who turns out to share the title with her twin sister, Nisha. They live in a haven called Ellora, named after the Ellora Caves in India.

The leads are South Asian, and even the iconic intro sequence is fundamentally different. As one account observed: “They took away the Chinese characters of each element … and replaced them with element symbols … surrounded by Hindu chakra symbols.” I’m aware the word avatar comes from Sanskrit, and South Asian religious traditions influenced the original series. The issue here isn’t cultural inclusion or influence; it’s cultural continuity. Expanding an established fictional universe doesn’t require dismantling the identity it already possessed. East Asians replaced by South Asians? Brits and Greeks replaced by sub-Saharan Africans? A win for diversity and representation. An all-white cast or a white man plays Goku in “Dragonball Evolution”? You committed the gravest of sins. Race-swaps only ever go in one direction.

While building on Indian influences in and of themselves can surely have potential, what ruins it is that they also build on LGBT ideology, which isn't approved of in India. And the reviewer's right, they don't have to throw out other cultural aspects just to emphasize the new ones. Ironically, I doubt they have any respect for China save for perhaps the communism dominating the country for nearly 8 decades now. Maybe that could explain why they got rid of any such influences from earlier entries. I also doubt they have any respect for Indian culture either, despite the suggestions to the contrary. That aside, it's got to be telling if they make Korra look bad, as though that particular cartoon wasn't in questionable enough taste already as it is.

Then there’s the show’s moral vision. At New York Comic Con, co-executive producer and head writer Sehaj Sethi said this: “There are no villains in the story. There are protagonists and antagonists. Everyone has a side and a point of view.”

Yeah, no wonder the writing flounders. No one has a problem with morally complicated characters. The original Avatar was full of them, such as Zuko, who wrestled through guilt, loyalty, and shame to reach redemption. But Zuko’s redemption only meant something because Fire Lord Ozai, his father, was evil. Ozai wasn’t simply a misunderstood man with an alternative perspective; he was an evil tyrant who scarred his own son.

Moral complexity is not the absence of moral truth. Good and evil are real, and you can never tell a compelling story about good overcoming evil if evil is merely an abstraction based on someone’s subjective perspective. The stated ambition of the “Seven Havens” creators to avoid villains altogether risks replacing moral conviction with endless relativism. A story where everyone has a point of view, but nobody is truly wrong, quickly becomes a story where nothing really matters.

Sounds like they're trying to mimic Hayao Miyazki's films, and worst, emphasize moral equivalence. What's there to find in that? All that does is make a mockery out of the whole concept of good vs. evil.

Then, on schedule, comes another familiar development. In the third episode, male airbender Jae reveals his boyfriend, a guard named Datu. The two embrace and share a kiss, and entertainment outlets quickly celebrated them as the franchise’s first on-screen gay couple. Jae’s voice actor called it “a wonderful exemplification of love is love.” Woke isn’t dead; it’s more alive than ever. And Hollywood is still obsessed with introducing this to families and children.

Swap out the cultures. Remove the villains. Add the representation checklist. My shorthand for this has always been gay race communism, and here it is in animated form.

And it's not even new at this point, recalling the Arthur cartoon also shoved it in. Avatar's unlikely at this point to find a good place in history as a cartoon that could give anybody something solid to think about, and removing differences between good and bad - to say nothing of possibly validating bad ideologies - only makes this all the more an embarrassment.

Comics Journal justifies Miller's defeatism

The Comics Journal recently reviewed Frank Miller's new biography, Push the Wall, and in their typical left-wing fashion, declare his 2011 graphic novel Holy Terror a mistake, which, of course, is what he's also been doing for several years now:

He doesn't shy away from addressing failure. He discusses Robocop 2 and Holy Terror, which was a potentially career-ending nadir to his journey. I agree with Miller's assertion that we learn more from our mistakes than our triumphs. "Never forget: failure is your friend." A more detailed discussion of those failures as well as Miller's aforementioned solo directorial debut on The Spirit would have been welcome. While Robocop 2 and The Spirit seem to be forgotten, backlash from Holy Terror continues to this day, though it has greatly lessened since Miller has publicly disavowed the book and chalks it up to a bad decision made during a low point of his life. "It was a fever." Miller has said in recent interviews promoting this book that he eventually realized that propaganda ranks just below pornography as an art form. Perhaps the accumulated backlash he's undergone explains why Miller is so reserved in this book. He's apparently abandoned the dangerous role of provocateur.

So they're saying he was once just that? I don't know if he was a "provocateur", but I do know there was a time when he seemingly once looked over serious issues, and if he decided since to no longer do that, it's very troubling as it's appalling and defeatist. The reviewer also says:

Even something as heartless and life-negating as American Capitalism doesn’t expect its workers to produce at the top of their abilities past the age of 60. He regrets that he "got really comfortable by the pools and on the barstools of Los Angeles" during his lost Hollywood weekend, but aside from the barstools, maybe that was an astoundingly good use of his time. Looking back now at the vantage point of mid-career I certainly wish I’d spent more of my days poolside. There’s nothing on Earth quite like a Miller Masterwork. Fortunately for him, Miller learned the lesson that he quotes from Bruce Lee: "The process is everything, the outcome is nothing." Another bromide, but a useful one nonetheless.

So they couldn't resist deriding capitalism simultaneously. Well, I guess we couldn't expect much else from such an otherwise dismaying periodical. What's Miller even done to prove he truly respects Will Eisner as a mentor? All I know is that Miller talks too much while helping little. Interesting they say he still receives backlash for writing Holy Terror, because that was the case in Britain when the Thought Bubble convention disinvited him, yet he never seemed to challenge it. The problem, of course, is that he doesn't have the courage to distance himself from his ultra-leftist colleagues, if they're more than willing to throw him under the bus over a GN whose premise they don't agree with. Did it ever occur to the reviewer that he's only furthering the "backlash" when he parrots the claim Holy Terror in itself was inherently wrong? No, what's wrong is if Miller didn't have the courage to explore what the Koran builds on, and I suppose that's why guys like him end up having "liberal guilt". But that's no excuse or substitute for actual failure, which was his apparent disinterest in researching anything vital.

If his Push the Wall biography emphasizes this kind of defeatism the reviewer speaks of, that's decidedly another reason why there's no point in wasting money buying it. Miller's regrettably the kind of leftist who doesn't have what it takes to stand his ground on what stories he writes up, and simultaneously, he doesn't have what it takes to write and illustrate a story building on more optimistic premises. Those are some of his biggest weaknesses, and above all, what was the point of producing a documentary about his career when most of what he's written other than Daredevil is hardly worth it anyway?

A project to examine classic comics that could soon be entering public domain

Indiana Public Media reports the state university's Luddy School is working on a study project for older comics:

Indiana University’s Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering and Michigan State University are collaborating on a project that will create digital scholarly editions for early American comic books.

It’s a two-year project funded through a $65,000 award from the National Endowment for the Humanities. IU Luddy professor and the project’s lead researcher John Walsh said this project is for creating prototype editions. This will allow them to document the process, have a manual and have a prototype web system for the next phase.

When this project is completed, they will apply for a full implementation grant to start building and publishing five to six scholarly editions of early American comic books. This project and the following one will take five years. Walsh said if all goes well they could continue their work, which will be available to the public. [...]

Focusing on early American comic books is because many of them will be entering the public domain with their copyright expiring in the next five to 10 years. The motivation is also the cultural history and significance early comics have. [...]

There are several genres of comics: children comics, romance comics, science fiction comics, war comics, superhero comics and more.

For example, many war comics were created by writers and artists who served in the military in World War II, or other wars, so understanding that aspect can help readers understand the significance of the content in the comics, Walsh said.

History of subjects like these could help new generations learn why they were considered so important in their time, and a serious focus is needed in comics on why communism was considered a bad ideology in the past century, what its totalitarian structure led to, and why it's still a serious problem today. Why, even the early James Bond films could make a great learning source for modern students, since they tackled the Cold War themes of the times, and when Stan Lee launched Marvel's Silver Age, he also wrote up metaphors for communism, as did some DC contributors of the times.

And on the subject of creations entering public domain, I hope there'll be good people who're willing to develop stories with entertainment and educational value when the time comes. After all the misuse in the past quarter century at the Big Two, when their products enter public domain, it'll be a blessing.